"You have Chance." McKynleigh said, sitting down at the table in the cafeteria.
"…Really? I didn't know!" Samuel said, his eyes wide. "Sorry. I'm just tired."
"It's cool." McKynleigh said, poking at her food.
"What's her name?" Hannah asked.
"What's whose name?" McKynleigh said, trying to sound natural.
"What's the name of the girl you are now crushing on?" Hannah said.
"How do you know there's a girl?" she asked.
"Cause you're not into guys." Bryce said, dropping his tray on to the tabletop.
McKynleigh growled at him.
"Miki, you're my best friend. I can tell when you are diggin' someone." Hannah said. "So to cut down on a lot of unnecessary bullshit, tell me her name."
"Emily." McKynleigh said, defeated.
"Vasquez?" Bryce asked.
"The girl who were short skirts and corsets to school?" Hannah asked.
"I would call her a slut…but you know, I've never seen her with a guy." Samuel said.
"Exactly…so maybe…just maybe she's bats for my team." McKynleigh said, staring across the cafeteria.
Sitting at a table with another girl her age was Emily. She was wearing skintight black skinny jeans, a tight white t-shirt with a red bra underneath, black and red high heels and tight leather jacket.
"Do you like her just because there is a possibility that she bats for your team and is smoking hot?" Bryce asked.
"Or because of who she is?" Hannah finished.
"I have talked to her, I have gym with her. We're partners for rock climbing, which started yesterday. We talked, she seems really nice." McKynleigh sighed.
Cameron sat down at the table and pulled his sack lunch out of his backpack.
Marissa was already at their table by the window, staring at the lunch that sat before her, a peanut butter sandwich, a bag of purple grapes, a box of juice, a bag of four cookies.
Cameron dumped his lunch out, a peanut butter sandwich, a pudding cup, a can of pop, a bag of gold fish and a bag of carrot sticks.
"Eat, Rissa." Cameron said, popping the tab on his soda.
"I'm not really hungry. It's probably the cold." She said, zipping her hoodie.
"Then you should at least drink your juice and eat your cookies. You need something in your system." Cameron said, sounding like the school nurse.
"Since when are you so medically inclined?" she asked, sitting the straw in her juice box.
"…I watch a lot of medical shows." Cameron lied.
"Cammie… you don't look so hot…well, actually. You look really hot. Do you feel okay?" she asked.
Cameron shook his head and pushed his lunch aside. "I'm suddenly nauseous."
"There is the flu going around, you probably caught it yesterday, and it's just now hitting you. Let's get you to the nurse." Marissa packed her lunch up.
"I can go by myself…I don't even want to think about food. Help yourself to anything in my lunch." He said grabbing his backpack and walking away from their table.
Marissa sighed and ate five grapes and drank half her small juice box. She threw the rest of their food away and headed to the gym.
"Nurse Kim…I don't feel too good." Cameron said, walking into the nurse's office.
"Sit down. I'll take your temperature, Cameron." The nurse said, closing her book.
She stuck a digital thermometer under his tongue.
"One hundred on the dot. I'll call your mom, lie down and sleep. I'll wake you when she gets here."
Cameron laid down on the cot on the far side of the room. He rolled over so he was facing the wall and closed his eyes. A few minutes later he felt a blanket being put over him.
"Cameron, your mom will be here in about an hour. I just want to take your temperature again." The nurse said, rubbing his shoulder.
Cameron opened his mouth and closed it around the thermometer.
"One hundred and five?" she sounded alarmed. "Cameron, honey wake up. I'm going to call your mom again. Do you feel hot?"
Cameron shook his head and sat up.
Ten minutes later Elizabeth was signing papers releasing Cameron to go home.
"Come on, Cam-Cam. I'm taking you to the hospital." She said, putting her arm around his shoulders.
"Mama, I don't feel good." He whined.
"I know, baby." She sighed.
"Mama, am I gonna be okay?" Cameron asked, stopping in his tracks.
Elizabeth knew what her some meant.
"Mama…am I going into remission?" he asked.
"I don't know. And we aren't going to know until we get you to the hospital." She said, leading him into the cold.
"Damian! I'm home." Shannon called as she walked through the front door of her house. "You awake, buddy?"
She dropped her coat on the couch and headed upstairs. The attic stairs were down. She climbed into the attic. Damian was sitting on the far side of the attic, in his pajamas and his father's old letterman jacket, surrounded by yearbooks, pieces of paper, new paper clippings and photo albums.
"Hey buddy." She said, walking across the attic. The old floorboards creaked as she walked.
"Do you have any of my mom's stuff?" Damian asked, looking up at her. His eyes were red and puffy and his cheeks glistened with tears.
"I'll have your grandma send over some of your mother's old trunks." Shannon said, sitting down beside Damian.
Damian leaned into her. She put her arm her nephew's shoulders.
"What's going on here?" Damian asked, pointing at a photo of Shannon with red, white, and blue hair and a scowl.
"Me and Damian had a prank war going on from the time he was nine to my senior year in high school. I don't remember who started it. But I remember ever prank we pulled on each other. This was one of the firsts. He snuck into my room in the middle of the night and painted my hair with finger paint and vanilla pudding." She laughed, flipping the page in the photo album. "I remember one of the best pranks I pulled was his freshman year. Me and a few of my team mates from track and field stripped him down to his underwear, covered him in glue and feathers, taped his mouth shut, put a blind fold on him and tied him to a tree before gym class. The girl he likes at the time was in that gym class. We removed his blindfold as they came out. It was funny."
"Auntie Shannon, do you miss him?" Damian asked, his voice breaking.
"I miss my baby brother terribly, buddy. I also miss you mom. She was a wonderful woman. Kind hearted, loving, gentle. Everything my brother needed."
"I miss her." Damian said, his breath catching in his throat.
"Lindsay! Open up! I gotta go!" her older brother Kevin yelled, pounding on the door.
"Use the other bathroom, I'm busy!" she yelled back.
"Dad's in there! Come on! I gotta go!" he groaned, rested his head against the door.
"Go outside. I'm busy." She said.
Kevin groaned and ran out back.
Lindsay opened the door a crack and look around the hall. Kevin was gone. She sighed and went back to work. She closed the door tightly and slid the lock into place with a quiet click. She stared at herself in the mirror that covered the wall above the sink. Her hair was wet looking along her scalp and her shirt had purple stains on the shoulders and collar.
"Lindsay, it's Mom. Open up so we can talk." Kate said from the other side of the door.
Lindsay checked the timer on the counter, three minutes left. She opened the door and locked it again, once Kate was in the room.
"Honestly, Lindsay. I don't see why you go through the hassle of dying your hair every few weeks." Kate said, examining a box of black hair dye that sat on the counter.
"Mom, I'm blonde. You all have dark hair. I want to look like you. I just want to be your daughter." Lindsay said, turning the shower on.
"Oh baby. Nobody will care if they find out that you are—"
"Don't say it."
"Adopted. It's not like you've been lying about who you are."
"Yes I have. Since I was six, I've been lying to everyone. When people ask me whose daughter I am, I lie. When people ask if I'm Kevin's little sister, I lie." Tears were forming slowly in her blue eyes.
"You don't lie about who you are. You are mine and your father's daughter. You are Kevin's sister." Kate reached out for a hug.
The time started beeping.
"I have to rinse." Lindsay said stepping out of her mother's reach.
She killed the timer and pulled her shirt off.
Kate sighed and walked out of the bathroom.
Author's note
Damian, I'm sorry! I just realized that I keep abusing Damian. In Desperado I killed his parents and gave him custody of his siblings. In Glee Project: Live Out Loud I divorced his parents, moved him halfway across the world, sprained his knee to great extent, and made his parents ignore him. In The Runaways I basically kicked him out of his country. And here, I killed his parents again. I am sorry, Damo.
I hope you liked the second chapter. Does anyone have any idea what's going on with the people yet? =) I hope so. Let me know what you think.
Thanks.
- Shelby